With Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo touring the country and announcing thousands of temporary jobs, the Opposition wants to know how will the jobs be created and where will the funding come from to cover the salaries and other benefits of the temporary employees?
The questions were asked at a press conference held by the Office of the Leader of the Opposition yesterday.
In March, Jagdeo announced that the government will be creating some 8,000 temporary jobs across the country to assist persons to cope with the rising cost of living. Ever since, he has been touring the country announcing specific numbers of jobs for various regions.
On April 11, he announced 3,000 temporary jobs for Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), April 27 saw the promise of 1,000 jobs in (Mahaica-Berbice), early May the people of Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) were assured of the creation of 800 such jobs, and on Tuesday contracts were signed for 2,000 jobs in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam).
Member of Parliament Ganesh Mahipaul said that while the Opposition has no issues with the creation of employment, even temporarily, for the citizens, it does believe that the process should be transparent.
“What we will do at the level of the Parliament is to ask the question as to where is it that the finance is coming from to pay for these temporary jobs and more so we can also request of the Auditor General to audit the finances to ascertain if it indeed came from that line item. The PPP cannot be trusted in terms of the information they provide and that is why we have to ensure that we exhaust all the options available to verify whatever they say to us at Parliament and the nation at large,” he said.
Mahipaul explained that under the Ministry of Finance there is a budgetary allocation that caters for wages and salaries and employment costs. He said that line item 6141 also caters for new recruits.
“…the line item [also caters for] public servants, teachers, doctors and nurses in terms of if there will be any increases in their wages and salary and one will assume that there is where the money will come from. But the way in which this administration has been operating, it will be difficult for me to conclude that there is where the money will be coming from,” Mahipaul asserted.
Under the line item, $6.1 billion was budgeted in 2020 which was increased to $10 billion but revised to 9.8 billion in 2021. In this year’s budget, $15.8 billion is budgeted to cover the expenses.
Mahipaul reminded that in 2020 no salary increases were given by the government and in 2021 an across- the-board 7% was announced. He expressed concerns that there are a number of vacancies that exist within the public sector that should attract permanent employment but they are not being filled.
“…we have not seen any study or we have not seen any paperwork or any demand for these large numbers of temporary jobs that the second Vice President speaks of. Now, let me be clear, we are not against young people or anyone earning a living. We are not against them getting the opportunity to work, nor are we against them developing themselves. But we do have a public service that requires the attention so that it can provide a service to the ordinary Guyanese and there should be equally the focus on the public service in terms of filling those vacancies that are causing the ministries, departments and other agencies not to function effectively. We want the public service to function effectively so that the proper service can be delivered to the ordinary citizens of this country. That is established in law.
“I want to also use this opportunity to say … that they need to provide this nation with the type of jobs that they are giving out in terms of these temporary jobs, the monies that these workers will be paid and at what rate they will be paid, what is the working hours and all of that needs to be known,” he said.
Mahipaul said that the information is relevant to ensure that permanent public service employees are protected and compensation packages are within the confines of the public service.
“…you have persons who are committed and dedicated to the Guyanese people for their full eight-hour span and considered permanent staff members and they may not be getting the right compensation as perhaps the temporary workers so that is one major concern of us.
“Also what will be the salary increase for the public servants from this year’s budget…there is also a large [budgetary] allocation there for a salary increase but we don’t know what is this whole aspect of temporary jobs [and] how it will impact on the increase that the public servants are hopefully expecting to cope with this high cost of living,” Mahipaul related.
Ad hoc response
Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton said that the announcement of temporary jobs represents the “manifestation of an ad hoc response” to the realities of the increased cost of living and inflation. He said that the government is doing nothing to address inflation and by throwing money at the issue, it makes it worse.
“Inflation is facing us. What one expects is that there will be proper measures to deal with inflation. But the government seems to be doing the very thing that creates inflation, throwing resources in without developing the productive sector etc. So I think the government is on a course of self-destruction. The government clearly does not have an economic plan for the development of this country and as oil resources come, we will see that there will be a need for a proper plan to deal with inflation,” Norton said.
He queried “…you have this question of which regions are you putting [the temporary jobs in]. What are the criteria being used to determine which region it will go to and then if it is coming from the money allocated to public servants, does that mean there will be less in terms of increase of wages and salaries to public servants?”
Norton reminded the government that it promised the citizens permanent jobs and it should deliver on that.
